"Habitual Provocateur" Lars von Trier Barred from Cannes

At the Cannes Film Festival for a screening of his latest film "Melancholia", Danish director Lars von Trier made remarks about his "sympathy" for Hitler and joked about being a Nazi. He later apologized but the festival has barred von Trier from attending the awards ceremony.

CEO of the Danish Film Institute, Henrik Bo Nielsen, criticized von Trier and called his comments "foolish" but noted "there's nothing new in the fact that great artists make stupid remarks."

It will be interesting to see if this affects the film's reception. It is scheduled to be released in the U.S. this fall. 

Read more here.

Interview with Oscar-winning filmmaker Susanne Bier

On NPR's Fresh Air today, Terry Gross interviewed Danish film director Susanne Bier, whose film "In a Better World" won best foreign-language film at both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.

The discussion not only focused on Bier's award-winning film, but also covered topics including her acceptance speeches and the "vow of chastity" of the Dogme 95 movement, founded by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg:

I believe in rules. I believe in artistic limitations, and I always have. I've always thought that setting out a set of rules before you start, and then being completely consistent with them, is the only way to make a really good film. These particular [Dogme] rules are austerity rules. They force you to deal with the storyline and the characters, and that's it. And I thought it was a real challenge in a positive way. There was a number of good films coming out from this set of rules.